The Pulpit Commentary — Genesis — Section 25

crntive power, inc-h1dee the whole of the work of redemption, a ,vork in n higher sphere of epiritual power, and more truly Divine, and one which, except in the eternal couneele of the Almighty, in which it W68 ordained before the tonndatione of the eartn ,r-ere laid, conld not begin until the finit Ad11n1 had been crc11tcd ae the.,,,,,,."(, the form in ontline ae it were, of that Divine man who should be here11fter rc>~ealed. 13. These consider1ttions fnlly expl1tin 1 so far 118 it can be explnined, the myetery of the seventh day and its sanctification. What tl10 days of God's worldng and God's rest mean in relation to l1ie eternal being is beyond our knowledge; but in our imitation of God we must regard them as represented by the daye of our short Iife on earth. Man being the son of God is to follow God 'e example alike in hie work- ing and his resting. The seventh day is eanctified for resting from those labours that belong· to things seen and temporal, i,'R, those pursuits that pertain to things unseen and eternal Both the works of man and the rest of man in hie earthly life are intended to prepare him for the reet of God. As a fundamental principle in the natural constitution of man, this sanctification of the seventh day implies that those po"-·crs of body and mind, which he exercises in subduing the earth and having dominion over it, require for their refreshment and perfection not only that cessa• tion from labour which ie provided by the succession of evening and morning, of night and day, but periodical rest of a different kind. As a religious principle it is also as obnously that, for the invigoration and development of the spiritual life in man, a definite portion of time should be periodically set apart and conse~ crated to God as the Lord of oar spirits, and devoted to those things tna.t belong to a spiritual world. It is hardly necessary to point out that this interpretation of the sanctification of the seventh day is altogether different from the idea that, from the creation, a particular day, a certain time of the. earth's revolution on its =is, was holier than others; this is to make of an ordinance antecedent to all law what St. Paul calls a "carnal commandment." On the other hand, if it be thought that the det.ermining of one day in seven for a day of rest must be, from its very nature, an artificial and arbitrary appointment, and . therefore inconsistent with a Divine and universal order, it must be remembered, not only that the fact of a seven- fold division occurring so frequently in Holy Scripture seems to indicate some cor- r1!8ponding reality in the Divine order beyond the range of our understanding, but also that he who created man must know, as we cannot know, what proportions of man's life are required for physical rest and spiritual activity, in order to preserve the true equuwrium of that life. Experience has abundantly proved of how great value this primeval ordinance is for the physical, moral, and religious welfare of man, and how full of profound truth are those words of our Blessed Lord, when in regard to this question, as on another occasion in reference to· marriage, l,e directed those 'l'r'ho were zealous for the law to the original ordinance as the true interpretationof the law : "The Sabbath wae made for man, not man for the Sabbath." 1 As our argument here is simply that the law (in tho sense of a Divine or<ler) of ,·est on the seventh day, after God's example, is involved in the history of creation, <:ven as tho true law of marri1Lge is in the union of the first man and the first woman, ii is unnecessary to enter intJ the question whether the Sabbath was observed in 1 St. Mark ii. 27. That Cbriat here referred to the ordinance from the beginning, and D'Jt to the llfosaical le.w, is obvious from the word iyivEro which is used both of the Sabbath and of man. Oiix i, av9pw1ro, [iyiviro], cannot mean anything else than "man was not created" for the SabLath, and would Le no rP,&Son e.t all in reference to a Jewish ordinance.  INTfiODUCTION TO THE PENTATEUCH. xi